Navigating racism with pseudo-antiracists

Working around diversity and inclusion is usually a considerable hustle, however, navigating around pseudo-antiracists is perhaps the most difficult. Yet it is very common and least easily identifiable.

In the British culture, with the never-ending “thank you”, “please” and “sorry”, identifying and calling out pseudo-antiracists is taxing. In this blog, I provide key information on:

• Who can be a pseudo-antiracist?
• How to identify pseudo-antiracists?
• Observation is key to differentiating between antiracists and pseudo-antiracists

Who can be a pseudo-antiracist?

Anyone around you – irrespective of the amount and frequency of antiracism work that they undertake.

How to identify pseudo-antiracists?

Pseudo-antiracists fall into different categories, they are listed here in terms of most identifiable to least identifiable and most dangerous.

1 There are many pseudo-antiracists who like to be part of the most recent hype, they are not necessarily antiracists, do not necessarily understand what antiracism is about, and often are knowingly and unknowingly racist to a large extent. They are interested in feeling interesting, with the latest buzzwords and being the centre of attention. They can be of any ethnicity but are most likely to be White.

2 Another category of pseudo-antiracist is made up of people who are often questioning themselves: am I White or am I BAME? These are often White Europeans and/or White European descendants (from within or outside Europe). It benefits them to say they belong to the Black Asian Minority Ethnic group as this presents a huge perk in securing opportunities and progression under the quota system. Since there is no obvious way for institutions to verify ethnicity, this has given rise to biases and failures within the quota systems.

3 There is another category of pseudo-antiracist who talk of antiracism because of workplace or career expectations, which is obviously linked to financial gain in terms of salary and promotion. These people are often racist, vicious, and will go to any extent for the sake of money (which they term as salary of course). Most racism cases with HR tend to come against this category of people, they are the “I am the HoD/Director/Dean/SLT and therefore know better than you” type, they are usually middle or senior managers or aspiring managers, both in the academic and professional services.

4 The most dangerous category of pseudo-antiracists are those who talk of inclusion and intersectionality non-stop. They are to a large extent against antiracism initiatives and projects as they do not directly benefit from those. They, therefore, prefer to dilute antiracism under inclusion and sway conversations, initiatives and projects towards other issues such as disability, LGBTQ, etc. They are often made up of:

• the second category of people described earlier
• people who do not fall in the White ethnic group but with lighter skin (they prefer terms such as “Global Majority” and “People of Colour” to feel included) so that they push their way to take lead on antiracism projects
• people who had been directly or indirectly affected by other non-British colonisation – they obviously hate their colonisers and are barking at the wrong tree being in the UK

5 The most dangerous and least identifiable category of pseudo-racists are those who directly hold title/role around antiracism but yet are racist – they often have titles such as Head of DEI, Head of BAME network, Dean of Inclusivity and so on. The reason for their pseudo-antiracism is because of their lack of lived experience of racism or a lack of exposure to the world.

• They include people of colour who come from an affluent background, with no lived experience of racism during childhood and adolescence and minimal experience of racism as an adult – they tend to have the network, connections, and finance to reach far and high but yet with minimal experience around racism and antiracism. They are those who are born with a silver spoons or with blessings, but do not want to talk of their privilege. They are often in panels at national level, publish books, and are a huge contributor of misinformation around racism.
• They are people of any ethnicity, who are not affected by racism, but affected by other issues of intersectionality – they are in positions where they run institution-wide or sector-wide DEI projects, and are first-class actors in putting up a show around DEI while being racist.
• They are people of colour, who have been victims of British colonisation (either within UK or from outside UK) but who are pitched against each other – a common example being the African v/s Asian hatred for each other. You may see them running consultancy on racism. They embody the “Divide & Rule” mindset instead of “Stronger Together” mindset against racism. This is the most dangerous as it feeds on “I am the worst victim” trump card – there is constant focus and energy spent towards victimhood (without realising that any trauma is a trauma) and less energy spent on overcoming real issues. These people often expect financial compensation for their ancestors’ plight (not only from White people but also from other ethnicities – remember the African v/s Asian delusive hatred), and refuse to take responsibility for their growth and change of situation. In short, they are people, who should for change, but secretly do not want things to change, because they enjoy being in the limelight of all the chaos.

To share a bit of my own experience, there are people who have antiracist roles and would still not make the effort to say my name right, and no they do not have any disability that prevents them from saying it right, they would just simply prefer not to acknowledge their racist biases.

Observation is key to differentiating between antiracists and pseudo-racists

Pseudo-antiracists are usually loud, everywhere, and with negligible valid antiracism content. They hop through antiracist projects to projects, scratching each to the surface without any real impact and may even benefit from personal financial gains. They pick the brains of antiracists and thrive from that. However, this is very easy to do in academia in the UK, and pseudo-antiracists are frequently recognised and rewarded for participation – the reason being that the evaluators of such recognition cannot differentiate between antiracism and pseudo-antiracism.

Recognising pseudo-antiracists is easier said than done and it comes from direct lived experience and exposure to various cultures. I have been lucky to be born and raised in a country where cultural diversity is truly present and celebrated, and yet where a pin drop can also very easily turn into an ethnic riot. I am forever grateful for my exposure to various cultures through my upbringing, education and work. I am well aware, there is a need for me to constantly familiarise myself and learn more about other cultures and countries, and thankfully as I like to say – I have more than one family in every country on this planet and that’s a real blessing in my learning process.

However, observing and identifying pseudo-antiracists alone will not create any impact. The real impact is when you feel empowered to call them out, you indeed call them out, and you make them realise that their every action has a consequence. I highly recommend working on assertive and authentic leadership, as this involves managing and sustaining organisational change. And if you want to truly understand antiracism, get yourself diverse mentors and coaches – sticking to a role model/champion is who same colour, faith, sex, ethnicity, beliefs, values, etc as you, purely for the “feeling safe” factor, is a disservice to your true growth.