overcoming racism

Racism is an outcome of an imbalance of power between women and men. If women and men achieve equality, all groups comprised of women and men achieve equality, and the inequity which fuels racism is removed.

Within fifty years mainstream thought will proceed from the assumption relations between women and men, rather than economic opportunity, is the engine room of human culture. That's the way the world is turning. So the best strategy to overcome racism is to borrow from the future. I do it all the time and I'm considered either a prophet or an idiot, often in equal measure, which seems to come with the territory but delivers excellent peace of mind.

Recognise gender relationships involved at source. What's the power base of those who espouse racism? If it's coming from an individual, what's their involvement with, or attitude towards the empowerment of women? If male, introduce into conversation the male privilege in which men wallow. If he doesn't recognise his privilege, ask where's the women's legislature, like the legislatures men granted themselves and have always controlled? If female, speak to the crumbllng dependence of women on men. The offender will consider your approach irrelevant to their preoccupation with resource allocation but persist and they'll become increasingly perplexed and less self assured because you have the tide of humanity on your side.

If a corporation is engaged in racist enterprise, look to the gender makeup of senior management and you'll have the support of Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick and the Australian Stock Exchange, which has flagged it will soon prohibit from trading corporations under its control which defer from enabling the fair representation of women on their boards of directors. Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group, for instance, has no women on it's eleven member board, Santos has three women on a board of twenty, so Santos can be considered a more equitable source of funding than FMG if funding is in contention, albeit that both are in dire need of reform which their sponsorship with you will encourage.

Turn the conversation to gender, to the provision of a balance of power between women and men, those most infuriated will be those most likely to resort to racism and to be silenced before they do. Borrow from the future, it's easy, like racism it's an attitude, an intellectual approach, but one which trumps racism. Go straight to an analysis of gender and bring the future into your present, works every time, in my humble experience.

philip mckeon

406/43 morehead street redfern eora
sydney australia 2016
mob: +61 0404 254 328