Racism: What It Is and How to Deal with It - Uned

Module 3 – Racism: How is it produced? | 51
racism in my school because there are no foreigners” or “…because there are no
immigrants.” This way of thinking, very frequent in school contexts, harbors
dangerous ideas:
- On one hand, it reinforces the idea that the presence of foreigners/immigrants, in
this case, leads to racist situations.
- Everything outside of the classroom or the school is not a subject that needs to
be dealt with, it is not important. (We should at least put quotation marks around
the “socialization” function that the school carries out. Does it prepare us to
interact with everyone? Or does it subtly prepare us to interact with “equals”?)
- Consequently, racism and anti-racist education will not be discussed simply
because there is no conflict in the school. The thoughts and attitudes that can be
the seed of racist situations are not considered: the valuation of groups as
inferior or the confusion of terms such as “right” and “privilege.”
n other words, all the seeds of racism are already there, although they are so
automatic that they habitually fall outside of the area of awareness and analysis. The
situation explodes when those “others” are present. Commentaries such as “we didn’t
used to be racist; they’re the ones who provoke racism” are part of everyday
language. As the minority group starts to grow in size, the perception of the group as
a threat grows, with the appearance of organizations, petitions, demands, rights,
obligations… That is, the majority group perceives the established order of “our”
society as beginning to falter.
Thinking about the conditions and contexts in which this kind of opinion occurs, we
can state that in many cases it is associated with situations that involve competition:
- Competition for the distribution of goods, whether material, job, social, or political
goods. From access to healthcare, education, and services, to doing a job or the
right to vote, these issues are experienced as rivalry.
- Competition for power, understood as influence and as control. The worry about
“contamination,” concerning ideas as well as habits or values, is part of a
common discourse where there is no room for integration. It is experienced as
“their ideas against ours” and as a threat of losing domains and privileges.