Have you ever though how white is youth work in Europe? Are we as a community inclusive enough? Can we learn something from the people protesting on the streets for #BlackLivesMatter. I believe that at least they deserve our reflection on our role to contribute to inequality. And here is my reflection.
My struggle if white person can run activities on anti-racism
Let´s start from the beginning, I started working with the topic of racism and anti-racism something like 8 years ago, and for the past 2 years I am asking myself ¨do I have a right to teach others about racism¨? Yes, when I started I was very proud of myself, and when I read a lot, took additional courses, watched a lot of YouTube, I have realized that I was whitesplaining a lot. But I kept contributing to the European youth work community in the area of racism, I mean I had a project approved lasting for 3 years so I kept working, despite this internal struggle I am really entitled to do so.
In this process I was slowly (or very slowly) realizing that how we can talk about the equality and inclusion when our team is all white, and is it really my place to talk about it. In some discussion on feminism that I was participating it was always underlined that men who has been participating, even being ally, they are not supposed to talk, they should listen, because the female voices have been oppressed for so long, that whenever there is a chance we need to give the voice for females. And I was thinking, it needs to be the same with racism, maybe the role of white people should be mainly listening, learning, and supporting, which is not really the same as implementing the trainings on racism and invisible racism.
On the other side, I have learnt a lot during this process, and somehow dealing with the topic of racism I have found internal courage and motivation to work on the fatphobia, type of violence that I am struggling with on the daily basis, and I see that there is lack of voices from the community who are empowered enough to speak up. And it only has happened because I immerse into the world of violence, microaggressions, power relations, and the enormous consequences of oppression. Since there are a lot of similarities in the different types of violence, we can call it racism, fatphobia or gender-based islamophobia, in the end all of those things are the consequence of the power structures, are deeply rooted in our societies and cultures, are omnipresent in our societies, and their consequences can be mortal.
I was reflecting as well on the lack of representation of POC (people of color) in the youth work in general, and to be honest it almost doesn´t exist. And how we want to combat racism, if we don´t have from whom to learn? The issue of lack of representation is always a systemic problem, it means that there is something that does not work, and the world of Erasmus+ is predominantly white. And if there are POC in the youth work, normally they are on the lower levels of power structures.
How white is Erasmus+ field
I decided to try to check what is the situation of the European trainers, group that I consider on the top of power structure of Erasmus+ world, since normally they receive the highest fees for their work and somehow, they are the most recognized. Of course, this is my opinion only, but then I am reflecting how many people after the training comments that they dream to become a trainer, and well I rarely hear that they dream of becoming youth worker. But this is for another article.
So I decided to make a small research, although you cannot call it researchJ I opened the salto page and searched all the trainers who are based in the programme countries. In total seems that for today (7th of June 2020) I got 450 matches. And since most of the people have a profile picture, I was looking at them and deciding by myself if they look white form me, or not. Definitely it is not the best way to do it, and some mistakes might be included, but still it felt interesting. There were 12 people who did not put their photos, but then I just check their profile, scroll down till CV, and in 9 cases I was able to see that they are white to me.
So out of 450 trainers in the SALTO pool, there were 439 trainers that looked white to me, 8 whom I consider people of color, and 3 people that I was not able to evaluate. So based on my curiosity (I prefer to replace the word research by curiosity), there is only 1,8% of trainers who are coming from the racialized community.
And yes, there are a lot of institutions in Europe, which are more inclusive, and there are anti-racist organization run by the racialized collectives, and in some countries, there are youth workers who work directly with young people coming from racialized collectives, and we can as well find experts etc. But my question is, why having anti-racism as one of the objectives of Erasmus+ (and previously youth in action) for at least over 15 years, still there is no representation of the community almost at all. And since one of the things that I understood from the past few years, that one of the important things we must do as white people to battle with racism is to educate ourselves and ask ourselves these uncomfortable questions I am asking. Do we have a systemic problem with racism in the Erasmus+ activities? And why there is no representation of POC?
Will I work in the field of anti-racism in the future?
The answer is YES, I will be contributing to the field as much as I can and until it is needed. First of all because there is a need to keep discussing race and white privilege, and I think I have already learnt about my white privilege, and until we won’t have people from this collective I believe there is a need. Secondly, I kind of got my respond from the book of Reni Eddo-Lodge ¨Why I´m no longer talking to white people about race¨. She was describing a story of her white colleague contributing to the field, and she concluded with those words ¨So many white people think that racism is not their problem. But white privilege is instrumental to racism. When I write about white people in this book, I don´t mean every individual white person. I mean whiteness as political ideology. ¨
Finally, from everything what I have learnt in the past years I know that I want to work in this field but not focusing on one specific form of discrimination or violence, but rather understanding the microaggressions, understanding what role power place in the discrimination and especially structural violence and learning more and more about our privileges.
Those are just my thought. I am right? I don´t know. What I know is that it feels that there is still a lot of things to do and it takes a lot of empowerment to actually stand up for something. And I am definitely in the process of getting there, and I have a motivation to change something.
youthworkerblog.com 
Dear Aga, first of all thanks for sharing your thoughts. I like and agree with your approach of “educating ourselves and ask ourselves uncomfortable questions” and it’s surely admirable to be always in the process of questioning and reflecting about what we do, as people and youth workers. I’d anyways like to point out some considerations that popped up in my mind while reading the article, and I’ll try to follow the flow of your thoughts, so please take everything I wrote just as my personal reflections, and excuse me if it seems I’m attributing concepts to you that you didn’t express. To put with your same words: Those are just my thought. I am right? I don´t know 🙂
1) My struggle whether – and why – POC are more “suitable” to run activities on anti-racism
I believe that talking about POC (people of colour, as in the article) indiscriminately might only be reinforcing “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race”. What I mean is that I’m struggling to see how having POC trainers (or POC working in the E+ or youth work field) would lead to have discriminated people’s voices included or to contribute more to equality and anti-racism.
And how we want to combat racism, if we don´t have from whom to learn?, you say in the article, and this might sound like white people are always supposed to be the privileged, never incurred into any form of discrimination, and therefore they can’t advocate for anti-racism and equality. White privilege surely exist in society, as well as racism against POC (still too much unfortunately), but I don’t see the correlation with anti-racism and equality in youth work, or why white people are less adequate than POC to run activities about these topics.
Because racism as concept is framed in the context of human rights, freedom of expression and anti-discrimination, all topics that whoever person could have been facing in different situations, have studied for and being involved into in different situations (as you yourself are). Reducing the narrative to “white vs black” people is limiting a lot the possible educational approach to the topic; when tackling the racism, our work is to educate and spread values connected to human rights and anti-discrimination, and in order to do so it’s important to be well-prepared, adopt a pedagogical and educational approach that can be effective for the target group we’re working with. Personal stories are important, but they’re just a part of a much bigger picture; plus, identify racism with POC is probably a racist approach itself. And here it comes my second flow of considerations.
2) The “invisible trap” while talking about the “whiteness” of Erasmus+ field
As I was saying until now, I don’t generally see a POC person more suitable or “entitled” to talk about racism compared to a white person, unless he/she actually faced discrimination or made relevant experiences/studies in the field. And this applies regardless the skin colour; therefore, I don’t see it as a meaningful point to have more POC in European youth work, because that would strongly limit the narrative to a merely physical approach which is not the point that we want to reach while talking about anti-racism and equality.
So how can POC be the right people to advocate for anti-racism if we don’t know their stories/backgrounds? Having them in a team of trainers/youth workers just because their skin colour would let us (or others) think that we are inclusive enough could be just as racist as their exclusion based on the same reasoning, because it founds its basis on the same ground, the physical characteristics of the individuals.
And this is something that somehow we are all subject to, what I call above as “invisible trap”, to have the tendency to frame people into specific categories and identify them as able or not able, better or worse than others to do something, talk about specific topics or more adequate to advocate some causes.
I believe that getting rid of this way of reasoning is one of the premises that can eradicate the basis of the racism, because it would allow not to think about people before knowing them and their stories, backgrounds and experiences.
To check how many white trainers are in the E+ field (don’t misunderstand me, I got your point and I know it came out of the most generous intentions) probably is nothing but falling into a stereotypical way of thinking; to bring the point to the opposite extreme, maybe it’s even educational to have only white people in a team running activities about anti-racism, in order not to let the “audience” think into the direction according to which only certain categories can be suitable to tackle certain topics, since everything need to be related to the uniqueness of the individual and his/her capability to address specific issues.
I value diversity and I agree it should be pursued and represented in our work, but I see it much more in terms of personal backgrounds, studies, experiences, personalities, values and cultures, not related to physical or other pre-recognizable characteristics, otherwise the risk is just to actually reinforce the stereotypes and prejudices that are at the base of racism, and isn’t that what we try fight for, as youth workers and trainers (and I believe also as individuals)?
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Dear Aga, first of all thanks for sharing your thoughts. I like and agree with your approach of “educating ourselves and ask ourselves uncomfortable questions” and it’s surely admirable to be always in the process of questioning and reflecting about what we do, as people and youth workers. I’d anyways like to point out some considerations that popped up in my mind while reading the article, and I’ll try to follow the flow of your thoughts, so please take everything I wrote just as my personal reflections, and excuse me if it seems I’m attributing concepts to you that you didn’t express. To put with your same words: Those are just my thought. I am right? I don´t know 🙂
My struggle whether – and why – POC are more “suitable” to run activities on anti-racism
I believe that talking about POC (people of colour, as in the article) indiscriminately might only be reinforcing “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race”. What I mean is that I’m struggling to see how having POC trainers (or POC working in the E+ or youth work field) would lead to have discriminated people’s voices included or to contribute more to equality and anti-racism.
And how we want to combat racism, if we don´t have from whom to learn?, you say in the article, and this might sound like white people are always supposed to be the privileged, never incurred into any form of discrimination, and therefore they can’t advocate for anti-racism and equality. White privilege surely exist in society, as well as racism against POC (still too much unfortunately), but I don’t see the correlation with anti-racism and equality in youth work, or why white people are less adequate than POC to run activities about these topics.
Because racism as concept is framed in the context of human rights, freedom of expression and anti-discrimination, all topics that whoever person could have been facing in different situations, have studied for and being involved into in different situations (as you yourself are). Reducing the narrative to “white vs black” people is limiting a lot the possible educational approach to the topic; when tackling the racism, our work is to educate and spread values connected to human rights and anti-discrimination, and in order to do so it’s important to be well-prepared, adopt a pedagogical and educational approach that can be effective for the target group we’re working with. Personal stories are important, but they’re just a part of a much bigger picture; plus, identify racism with POC is probably a racist approach itself. And here it comes my second flow of considerations.
The “invisible trap” while talking about the “whiteness” of Erasmus+ field
As I was saying until now, I don’t generally see a POC person more suitable or “entitled” to talk about racism compared to a white person, unless he/she actually faced discrimination or made relevant experiences/studies in the field. And this applies regardless the skin colour; therefore, I don’t see it as a meaningful point to have more POC in European youth work, because that would strongly limit the narrative to a merely physical approach which is not the point that we want to reach while talking about anti-racism and equality.
So how can POC be the right people to advocate for anti-racism if we don’t know their stories/backgrounds? Having them in a team of trainers/youth workers just because their skin colour would let us (or others) think that we are inclusive enough could be just as racist as their exclusion based on the same reasoning, because it founds its basis on the same ground, the physical characteristics of the individuals.
And this is something that somehow we are all subject to, what I call above as “invisible trap”, to have the tendency to frame people into specific categories and identify them as able or not able, better or worse than others to do something, talk about specific topics or more adequate to advocate some causes.
I believe that getting rid of this way of reasoning is one of the premises that can eradicate the basis of the racism, because it would allow not to think about people before knowing them and their stories, backgrounds and experiences.
To check how many white trainers are in the E+ field (don’t misunderstand me, I got your point and I know it came out of the most generous intentions) probably is nothing but falling into a stereotypical way of thinking; to bring the point to the opposite extreme, maybe it’s even educational to have only white people in a team running activities about anti-racism, in order not to let the “audience” think into the direction according to which only certain categories can be suitable to tackle certain topics, since everything need to be related to the uniqueness of the individual and his/her capability to address specific issues.
I value diversity and I agree it should be pursued and represented in our work, but I see it much more in terms of personal backgrounds, studies, experiences, personalities, values and cultures, not related to physical or other pre-recognizable characteristics, otherwise the risk is just to actually reinforce the stereotypes and prejudices that are at the base of racism, and isn’t that what we try fight for, as youth workers and trainers (and I believe also as individuals)?
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Thank you for your thoughts. Definately I was not expecting for the impact that this text had, but I am very happy to be able to further discuss it, it is as well for me the good exercice to organize my thought.
So first of all I did not say that white people cannot talk about equality, it was purly refering to anti-racism. And as you have seen in the end of the article I said that I will keep working in this field. My issue is if we white trainers are really prepared to run this kind of activities? and to discuss anti-racism? and not to treat it in the superficial way and do whitesplaining instead of education. And looking at my journey I feel I was trying to do the anti-racism education without being prepared.
You mentioned: plus, identify racism with POC is probably a racist approach itself, I don´t think so, but anyway this is already the academic dispute if we include white migrants into the concept of racism, or just xenophobia, if we want to include islamophobia and antisemitism into the concept of racism or no, if we understand whiteness as the political concept or just focusing on the skin color literally, and what to do with the culturalism? etc. There are many concepts that can be used to actually argue any of the statements. But well I want to try not to enter into this conversation, because in this way in the end we focus on the definitions, and very academic dispute, instead of what is the most important, what we can learn from this, and what we can do, instead of just talking.
And finally I would like to refer to your comments about the ¨checking the number of trainers in SALTO¨. I am reading you, and I have a feeling that you are not reflecting at all the structural racism. Because for me looking in the database, and not seeing POC, knowing that EU is having in it´s objectives promotion of equality makes me think, why having quite big representation of POC in Europe we did not reach after more then 20 years to actually have well qualified POC trainers in our field. And definately it is not about include (refering to the ledder of participation) just for the decoration, I am talking about the inclusion that normally is the long term process of changing some structural issues to enable people to become proffesionaly who they want to become.
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Dear Aga, thanks for your reply. I mentioned equality because you yourself talk about it together with anti-racism, and it’s also difficult to speak about one concept without considering the other (and others), since they’re quite interrelated. But sticking with anti-racism, probably I didn’t express myself properly; as concerning this: “the white trainers are really prepared to run this kind of activities? and to discuss anti-racism? and not to treat it in the superficial way and do whitesplaining instead of education”, my main point is that I really don’t see the correlation between anti-racism and POC being more prepared/suitable than white trainers as assumption, because the skin colour doesn’t make a person automatically more qualified to talk and implement activities about anti-racism, this is the “invisible trap” I was mentioning that tend to frame people according to categories instead of giving value to uniqueness of the individuals, in this sense, to bring it to the opposite extreme, it could be considered a racist approach as well.
I totally agree with you with not going into academic dispute, as the concept of racism and what it includes is quite debatable indeed, but I must underline in this regard that, even though generalising is never appropriate and it’s obviously important tackle sensitive issues on a case-by-case level, I think that there might be some “categories” of people which actually could make more sense to include while running certain kind of activities, and following your approach of the structural level “how white is the E+ youth work field”, I would probably agree if it wasn’t about POC. For example, talking about islamophobia or anti-gypsism without having Muslims or ROMA in the “team” would probably make less sense, but this is simply related to the fact that these “categories” share similar cultural features and values, so they can give a broader understanding of how to deal with the racism against them.
But POC is a very peculiar category for me, that doesn’t share anything but a physical characteristic, which doesn’t qualify them in any way as individuals, so how this can reflect into educational approaches to activities? That’s why I don’t see the point of inclusion or not while talking about anti-racism and therefore, according to me, the “structural level” that you refer to, which I like and agree with it generally, can’t really be checked with the “SALTO trainer” approach. In this specific case, since it’s only about a physical characteristic, I would approach the topic only referring to individuals and their backgrounds, cultures, values and experiences to see whether they’re “entitled” to talk about anti-racism.
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How many people see races instead of seeing just people?
And, maybe more relevant, How many people’s jobs depend on people just seeing races and never seeing just people?
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