Transcriber: Mariana Mettola Reviewer: David DeRuwe
I have a white friend who once claimed that racial discrimination didn't exist,
so there was no need to fight against it.
He believed that Black people could become anything,
even the President of the United States.
When I confronted him about how common racial discrimination was
and how often Black people were treated differently in our society,
his response was, “Well, I never experienced racial discrimination.”
I remember getting really angry about it when he said that.
Of course I’m not angry because he has never experienced discrimination.
On the contrary, I’m happy for him,
and I hope he’s never discriminated against in his life.
But what makes me angry and sad is that he doesn't hear or see
or even acknowledge other people's discrimination experiences.
These conversations have over the years inspired me to think about
how I can change my friend’s opinion on discrimination
and how I can even motivate him to do something against discrimination.
And I started thinking about witnessing discrimination as a possible strategy.
I’m a collective action researcher, and I’m trying to understand
when, why and how people take action, either for their own groups,
such as women taking action for gender equality
or for other groups such as white people taking action for racial justice.
We know from collective action research that people are more likely to take action
to the extent they identify with a group,
they perceive injustice and they feel like their actions can bring about change.
In my own research, I wanted to take one step back, and I asked this question:
“How can we show people that there is injustice and discrimination in the world,
so they can’t ignore or deny it?”
More importantly, to be able to bring about the social change we want,
how can we motivate people to take action against this injustice?
In a moment, I will tell you how we all benefit from collective actions
and protest against injustice and discrimination.
I'm going to tell you how we can motivate people to take action as well.
But first, let’s look at what discrimination is:
We define discrimination as the unjust or prejudicial treatment of people,
based on their race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation,
disability, and so on.
Discrimination can take many different forms.
Just to give you an example of what discrimination looks like in real life,
the white employee at Starbucks in Philadelphia
called the police when she saw two Black men
sitting at a table without ordering anything.
The man reported that they were simply waiting for their friend,
and witnesses said the men did nothing wrong.
Still, the police escorted this man out in handcuffs.
Another Black student fell asleep in the common room
of her dormitory at Yale University, and a white student called the police.
Later, she found out the Black woman was one of her neighbors.
In the summer of 2020, George Floyd was brutally killed by the police
in Minneapolis, and we all witnessed this killing
as it was shared many times, both on social media and on the news.
After this brutal killing, many people took to the streets,
not only in the US but also in different parts of the world.
People took action for racial justice.
As I mentioned earlier, when people perceive injustice,
they are more likely to take action.
But how can we convince people to take action
when some of them even deny
that discrimination against certain groups exists?
I suggest that witnessing discrimination with their very own eyes
may help advantaged-group members see the world
from the eyes of the disadvantaged,
and this may motivate them to take action for social justice.
My colleague Professor Linda Tripp and I conducted studies in the United States
to see whether there is a link between witnessing racial discrimination
and willingness to take action for racial justice,
such as attending the Black Lives Matter protest,
attending forums related to this protest,
and posting messages on social media about this protest.
We focused on white people in the studies as advantaged-group members,
and we tried to understand their actions.
We asked how often they had witnessed
different incidents of racial discrimination in their day-to-day lives,
such as whether a Black person was treated differently than other people,
whether a Black person was followed around in a store,
and whether a Black person was threatened or harassed.
And here is what we found:
The more white people witnessed incidents of racial discrimination,
the more action they took for racial justice.
Even though we found a direct link between witnessing racial discrimination
and willingness to engage in action for racial justice,
we also found that witnessing racial discrimination may motivate white people
to take action by increasing their racial privilege awareness.
So witnessing racial discrimination may help advantaged-group members
ask these questions to themselves:
“Why am I not followed around the stores?” “Why am I not harassed by the police?”
This reflection may help them become more active in racial justice efforts.
But why do I talk about taking action, collective action and protest?
Because taking action against injustices has benefits
not only for us as an individual, but for our group and our society.
What are those benefits?
Individuals who take action against discrimination may feel more empowered,
may feel more hopeful about the future, may have higher well-being,
and may become more willing to take action against discrimination in the future.
Taking collective action may also help people embrace excluded groups,
and this may increase their empathy toward these groups.
At a societal level, protest may raise social awareness and may help to build
political coalitions between advantaged and disadvantaged groups.
This is exactly what happened after the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
These protests created awareness about structural racism,
not only among white people, but also in our societies.
These protests also brought about changes in local politics.
For example, more than 20 major cities in the US have reduced police budgets
and invested in new programs for their community members.
There’s an amazing opportunity for us to take action against discrimination.
For those people who deny discrimination and who do not acknowledge its existence,
witnessing discrimination directly or through videos on social media indirectly
plays a major role in motivating them to take action against injustice.
We showed that witnessing incidents of discrimination
can be an important motivator,
both for raising their privileged awareness
and for increasing their willingness to engage in different forms of action.
It is time to take action against injustice and discrimination in all forms.
When you see a person of color is discriminated against
in our class, on a bus or in a supermarket,
it is always possible to take action against it.
What kind of actions can we take?
For example, we can take individual actions,
such as confronting someone who makes a racist remark,
reporting racist incidents to authorities,
offering support to a person who is targeted by racist remarks,
and putting pressure on people to be accountable
if they engage in racist speech or behavior.
We can also take collective actions
such as posting messages on social media together with others;
attending forums, meetings or discussion groups related to racial justice;
and protesting on the streets for ethnic and racial justice.
The last time I checked,
my white friend who denied that racial discrimination existed
also shared the Black Lives Matter sign on his Facebook
and became a supporter of minority rights.
I believe witnessing George Floyd’s killing by the police
was a turning point for his transformation.
So what this little story shows us
is that witnessing discrimination can be a transformative tool for all of us,
and when we take action together against discrimination,
we can bring about the social change we want for a more equal society.
Thank you.