‘How come the king of the African Jungle, Tarzan, is white?’
Cultural practices establish manners or etiquette; for instance, “burping” in Asia is common, where “blowing the nose” is not the right manner, whereas, in the West, it is the exact opposite.
Before I went to Sweden in 2006 for my higher studies, I worked in Nepal with foreigners from the Global North. At this point, I was not aware of discrimination based on nationalities, religion and color. In 2004, I stopped a foreign field coordinator from exploiting Nepali staff, marking my first encounter with such an attitude. While working at Bir Hospital, Kathmandu, I invited foreign interns for dinner, which is part of Nepalese culture, and we treat guests as gods.
How to combat internalized racism?
My first direct experience of racism occurred in 2006-07 when Itravelled with my Iranian, Indian, and Armenian friends in Western Europe on a train. A local young guy shouted slurs at us like ‘Pakis go away’ out of the blue and even threatened us for no reason. Ironically, no one intervened. Since then, I’ve noticed various forms of racist and discriminatory behaviors: extra security checking, immigration questions, street and public transport harassment, and making faces. Moving to the Global North in 2015 helped me to understand and even encounter different forms of racism: interpersonal, institutional, structural, systemic and internalized. Based on my experience, racism can be mild, moderate, or severe.
Interpersonal racism often goes unnoticed, and many have internalized racial superiority, a mild type like people making faces or avoiding sitting next to you. They may pretend inclusivity, saying they like your food, place, language, attire, etc., but speak ill of the Global South at other times, like people are not well educated or do not have the “right” manners or etiquette. Cultural practices establish manners or etiquette; for instance, “burping” in Asia is common, where “blowing the nose” is not the right manner, whereas, in the West, it is the exact opposite.
Moderate racism includes discriminatory practices in public spaces and workplaces, often resulting in unfair treatment of people. Examples of such institutional racism include being served last in restaurants and being selected for random security checks at airports. In the workplace, a lack of diversity allows discrimination to prevail, with people from the Global North occupying senior positions, often considering themselves superior and better than the Global South in terms of knowledge, skills, and experience. This is internalized racism with a superiority complex usually to instill the fear of retaliation in the minds of people as a strategy to prevent them from raising their voices against racism and discrimination. Even though I’m usually outspoken, it took me a whole year to decide to publish this article I wrote last year.
Another form of racism is the belief that a fair complexion is superior. Consequently, many people want to be fair, as reflected in the popularity of 'fair and lovely' cream. Often, many people copy the good, the bad and the ugly behaviors of supremacists without realizing the impact and forgetting their history, culture, practices and traditions. In one of the interviews with the BBC, boxing legend Mohammad Ali asked, “How come the king of the African Jungle, Tarzan, is white?”
Severe racism arises when moderate racist behaviors and practices become systemic, harming individuals' health, wealth, and reputation to other racial, ethnic, religious or minority groups and institutions. The murder of George Floyd exemplifies severe systemic and structural racial discrimination. During COVID-19, systemic discrimination was evident in vaccine distribution, with some nations stockpiling doses while others suffered shortages. Visa discrimination at international conferences also reflects fears of losing opportunities to the Global South, perhaps linked to colonial legacies. In the Paris Olympics, the world witnessed systemic discrimination against certain nationalities by unnecessary doping tests, rude attitudes, disrespectful behaviors and derogatory remarks.When I asked friends from the Global North about their colonial history, many ironically dismissed it or expressed pride in their colonial history.
No place in the world is without racism and discrimination, and there is discrimination and racism in the Global South, too.My country, Nepal, has a lot of discrimination and casteism, and I have always raised my voice against such acts and published an article on it. It would be incorrect to generalize that every individual in the Global North is racist and discriminatory. Many from the Global North support the voices and fight against racism and racial discrimination. To eliminate racism and racial discrimination, we all need to work together. In a forum against racism or racial discrimination, I noticed that most people from the Global South are attending and very few from the Global North, just as in a gender-related meeting, most attendees are always female,with very few males. Therefore, we need to collectively educate that racism and racial discrimination are not a problem of the Global South only, just as the gender issue is not only for females. We must eliminate all forms of racism and discrimination together for equity, dignity, and justice for all.
