What an extraordinary comment from Conservative councillor Rance last week.
According to her “many of these men are targeting ‘our women’”, the men in question being the asylum seekers at the former hotel in Sindlesham. It is racism pure and simple. Elsewhere on social media the councillor claims that she cannot be racist as she has mixed race grandchildren. The terrible news for the councillor and her family is that the racists and racism which will touch on her grandchildren will care not one jot that they are the ‘right’ type of brown skinned (related to the councillor) rather than the wrong sort of brown skinned (seeking asylum and accommodated in Sindlesham).
When racism creeps out from under its rock it simply does not care about the nuances of identity many racists are capable of expressing or the familial and friendship relationships of racists. That is one of the defining features – it lumps people together in a group and dehumanises them. The dehumanising then allows inhuman behaviours to the victim group.
Racism does not care. It damages lives at all stages of life. It manifests itself as extra bullying on the way to school or in school. In attacks on property. In jobs unsuccessfully applied for. In unfair treatment at work. In harsher sentences in court. In abusive and threatening behaviour. In physical attacks. In injury and death. In the mental toll on victims. Add an extra layer if the victim is a woman.
When racism captures the law or government it becomes even more damaging and destructive. The Holocaust and the Atlantic Slave trade were only possible with racist dehumanising of Jews, Gypsies and Africans.
The destructiveness of racism is why we should never tolerate it, ever, anywhere.
Sometimes racism attaches itself to other causes. And we have seen this in many of the protests outside asylum accommodation, claiming to be concerned solely by violence against women. We have seen it the recent march organised by the convicted criminal and former English Defence League leader, Stephen Yaxley-Lenon. The march was nominally about free speech but the reality was expressed by a range of ethnonationalist and racist speakers. We see the racists trying to appropriate our national flags or making mere graffiti of St George’s Cross, with the aim to intimidate.
In all these instances, racism takes a cause and contaminates it. They shout it is not racist to want women to be safe/to want free speech/to love your country. And they are right. It is not and these are good things.
But when the driver of your concern is people you have dehumanised and where people concerned about violence against women and girls jump to the defence of racists; where people cannot talk about flags without deploying racist tropes, then you have racism problem. Add to these the various frankly mad and crank views on regressing women’s rights, 5G phone masts and anti-vaccination warriors that seem to attach themselves to the racists, then you have a bubbling mess of hatred that will never, ever be satisfied by reasonable engagement.
One iteration of this is the demand the asylum seekers be ‘vetted’. Being ‘vetted’ is what happens when you apply to join MI5. It suggests a rigour of assessment that is simply not possible for asylum seekers. At a most fundamental level if people are fleeing a cruel regime (let’s say the Taliban or Iran) you do not ring the regime up and ask if the person is sound. The idea is absurd. But point of continually asking for ‘vetting’ is not about seeking reassurance. It is about creating fear and uncertainty about a whole group of vulnerable people. Asking for the impossible and then dehumanising the group when the impossible cannot be delivered.
Racism is evil. It must be shamed out of our community and out of our country. It must be challenged wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head.
By Cllr Andy Croy
