It is important that voices outside the white gaze are heard when we talk about racism and it is important that we review ourselves intimately before even demanding social reviews.



we all are racist
Photo by Max Bender on Unsplash




What can a white Spanish woman do to fight racism in the world? This morning I send this WhatsApp to my friend the writer and cartoonist of Chinese origin, Quan Zhou. “I would like you to help give voice to the racialized, I would like it if it were not another white Spanish woman speaking of races from her vision,” he replies on the other side. It is so forceful that I think Quan and I have to talk. In the end, I decided that the best thing will be to make our talk public. A white American and a Spanish of Chinese origin talking about #blacklivesmatter. Perhaps the only genre to deal with an issue like racism is a conversation because it respects the fact that no speech is complete.


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We speak of the gaze, of how we Spaniards perceive racism. I, for example, have posted the #blackouttuesday black photo on Instagram after the murder of George Floyd. Quan also published it but not everything seems solidarity in this rain of black squares. This is what she thinks: “Many of the people who have protested online are racist. But we are nice and we have good intentions. This is how revision is avoided in Spain. We must accept at once that we are all racists, as it is an impossible structure to escape. Even I can have racist attitudes, despite being a racialized woman, because it is something structural. Just as many women can have macho attitudes if they live in a society that is “.

However, it seems that in Spain we do not have structural racism as strong as the one we condemn in the United States, so we see the problem as something distant, as when the coronavirus only affected China. Precisely in Spain last Sunday, my friend Nana, a Spanish woman of Saharawi origin, went to a pastry shop to pick up my birthday cake. Before Nana said a word, someone in line asked, “What did the lady tell you to ask for?” It is neither that far nor is it just a black issue. In any case, it is a fact that many more whites than blacks will be spoken and opined about the death of George Floyd in newspapers and televisions around the world.


Quan catches fire with this last point. “I am tired of seeing Spanish socialists going around the same three things as always: Trump is the worst, this is racist and this is not and how good that in Spain this does not happen. There are neither Spanish Afro-descendants nor there are African-Americans in the gatherings. So while white discourses have nuances, different ideologies, and perspectives, all blacks or all Chinese are always put in the same bag. However, the identity of a Spanish Afro-descendant is different, for example, that of an African American. ”


The photographer Angelica Dass has spent a good part of her life photographing the skin of thousands of people to find a single one that was black. Four thousand portraits later conclude empirically and according to the Pantone color bookstore that black, white, red, or yellow people do not actually exist.

Quan is supposedly “yellow” and her experience in Spain with this color has not been without racism. “They have followed me on the street, they have told me to go to your country, although I was born in Spain … At school I had few friends, I have been asked many times if I sell beers when I am in a bar … At thirty, close people They miss her big boobs being Chinese as if she could only be a submissive, small-breasted woman. But worst of all is the prevailing goodness. Every time I comment on something that bothers me, my own friends clarify that there was no bad intention. How long will it be enough? Was George Floyd’s killer malicious? ”

It is important that voices outside the white gaze are heard when we talk about racism and it is important that we review ourselves intimately before even demanding social reviews. Perhaps Quan and I are not the best ones to comment on the murder of George Floyd but to review our privileges and what is better, to do it together, and broaden our perspectives. Who can recognize theirs? “Unlike blacks, the stereotypes around me are not violent. Chinese people are believed to be hard-working and lately wealthy. In shopping malls, they always come to assist me and offer me luxury brands. ” My privileges as a white woman are so great that I have never asked about them. So big that I thought I could write about racism from my white woman’s body and privilege without needing help. Just as most men acknowledge their privileges but do not review them, most whites and whites do little with what we know or feel about racism. Sometimes, we even try to protect our ignorance or our good intention.



The first step is therefore to recognize it. The second may be to look into other realities. Look for books by Afr authors American, Americans who have in their library, how much Asian cinema they have seen in the last year — with Parasites is not enough — and how many times have they needed to listen to the analysis of reality from a new perspective and not from the white privilege inherent more to our thinking than to our own. skin color.


By: NURIA LABARI, QUAN ZHOU