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

A Guide to Talking about Racism | 8
Introduction to the Guide
CONTENTS OF THE INTRODUCTION
• The Guide: Why and For What?
• Foundations. What Racism Is and What Racism Is Not (The Group’s Ideas
about Racism)
• Structure
• How to Use the Guide
• How the Guide Was Made
• Dilemmas of Contents and Use
The Guide: Why and For What?
It is not easy to talk about racism. It is a complex reality that is present in our
everyday experience, both inside and outside of education centers, although its
existence is usually denied. This was one of our first reflections, as a group, when we
received the proposal from FETE-UGT, in June 2005, to carry out an exploratory
study that would put us in contact with teenagers’ perceptions concerning racism. The
idea was to make the voice of the boys and girls who live with, suffer, or face racism
heard, and to obtain relevant information for preparing a guide, intended for teaching
staff and adults in general, as well as for teenagers themselves, a guide that would
help them to recognize, understand, interpret and manage situations of racism.
We made contact with teenagers who, because of their characteristics, we prejudged
to be possible members of groups that suffer the weight of racism daily: above all,
girls and boys who we associate with the category “immigrant.” We approached them
on the street, in parks, wherever we though that they could share their ideas and
experiences in a climate of trust.
We also considered how to approach this complex subject with them without hurting
their feelings. The term “racism” seems to provoke rejection and denial: Would it be a
good idea to refer to it directly, or should we use some alternative path that would
lead us to this issue?
Most important of all, we discovered a few things.
We discovered that teenagers have a clear, broad vision of racism and its
implications, and that they are able to distinguish and narrate their experiences of it.
We also discovered that our way of thinking is sometimes too limited and biased, that