Race is one of the big issues we are dealing with in South Africa [and in Americaland, and most probably in pretty much every other country in the world, right?] and there is still a lot of work to be done.

The idea of this series came from my understanding that most of us have some kind of racism or prejudice towards other people, particularly those of other cultures or race – some are quite overt and others are more subtle – something that is obvious to you might be a blind spot for someone else… and sometimes until we know, we don’t know… so i am thinking this will be a light Dummies Guide to being Less Racist for those of us desperately trying to be so.

racist graph

A more obvious example might be referring to your fifty year old gardener as ‘boy’ and a less obvious example might be something like ‘asking to touch someone from another race’s hair’ – this might overlap with the ‘what i would love my white friends to hear’ series on my blog and i feel like it could really be helpful for us all to learn from.

We look at the big issues of racism and prejudice and they can sometimes feel completely overwhelming. But maybe a helpful place to start is with the smaller things some of us may not be aware of that we do or say on a regular basis.

Until you know, you might not know.

How can we help those around us to be one bit less racist? If you have an idea you’d like to share as part of this series, drop me an email at brettfish@hotmail.com and i can take a look.

Megan Furniss posts some helpful questions

Calling someone ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ when they clearly aren’t

Taking a step back from the small aspects to view the bigger picture

When we refer to a specific group of people as ‘they’ or ‘those people’

racismleary