Leah Pennisi-Glaser: When racism leaves you numb
Our emotional response to racism is not always the same as our actual response should be
IGET THAT you’re Jewish — but why don’t you understand that anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism?” My flatmate’s girlfriend was round for dinner (we’re in a complicated two-household bubble) and the David Miller saga came up, just as dessert was plonked on the table. I rolled my eyes and said, “Yup, in theory one isn’t the other, but they often are. And when it comes to this professor of sociology they definitely are. Miller has accused Jewish students at Bristol University of ‘being used as political pawns’ for the Israeli government and argued that Zionism is behind Islamophobia.”
Amelia didn’t say much more, but I don’t think it was down to the incisiveness of my argument. I think it was because I looked bored. I hadn’t had the emotional response she was expecting.
The truth is I wasn’t feeling very stimulated. Seven years at a secondary school where you could count the number of Jewish pupils on the fingers of one hand has left me pretty numb to antisemitism, conscious and otherwise.
When my teacher first invited me to “debate” the Israel-Palestine question with him in front of the class, I got pretty agitated. I was 11 and he came off as smarter than me.
And the first few times I heard classmates say, “You killed Christ” and, “The Jews did 9/11”, it wasn’t pleasant either. I burned and it showed.
But it didn’t take me long to learn that a pithy response and a cool demeanour were the best tactics. It disarmed my critics, which made me feel better about myself. And somewhere along the line, this learned behaviour became my genuine response. My reaction to Amelia wasn’t staged. Eye roll was how I felt.
Kian, a former student at my school, gets it. “When I was watching the video of George Floyd’s murder I knew I should be feeling outraged but I actually felt nothing. When I was a kid, scenes of police brutality against black people used to scare me. But I think I worked out on a subconscious level that when it comes to racism your feelings aren’t necessarily helpful.”
More recently, though, Kian did feel anger rising. “I was in a meeting to discuss my A-level options and I said I wanted to do economics. Without missing a beat, the teacher replied: ‘Why don’t you consider business studies instead?’
“I was fuming. I got a seven in maths and 10 good GSCEs. What more did I have to prove? This guy was being unconsciously racist. But I bit my tongue. If I’d lost my s**t I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do economics A-level and I’d have confirmed the stereotype of the angry black man.”
My friend
Priya, a second-year student at Edinburgh University, knows all about the importance of tactics, too.
“Being a lesbian Indian is difficult but it’s the racial abuse that really cuts because it’s not just me who’s being attacked — it’s my family and heritage too. Meanwhile, I grew up with a lot of casual homophobia from people in my community, so my instinctual reaction is much more muted.”
To this end, Priya finds it easier to deal with homophobes than she does racists: “If someone makes a homophobic comment, I tend to be quite calm and reasonable, which in my mind is the ideal response to any kind of hate. But if someone says something racist it feels like a punch to the stomach. I have to work through my emotions before I can think about trying to formulate a counter-argument.”
Interestingly, all three of us can point to a racial stereotype that’s particular to our ethnic group. For Kian it’s the “angry young black man. He’s violent, unintelligent and, of course, exaggerates racism.”
Priya feels that the angry black woman trope “can be applied to all women of colour. Like the angry black man, she’s aggressive and ignorant. But she’s also that ‘crazy b***h’ — you can’t trust anything that comes out of her mouth because she’s mental.”
And for me, it’s the hyperbolic Jews of antisemitic ridicule who see Jew-hate where there is none.
None of this is fair, but then racism isn’t fair either.
And while you can’t help your emotional response to this injustice, you can, and should, control your actual one.