Name: Why are people racist? | BBC Ideas
Uploaded: 2020-06-07T16:11:14.000Z
Duration: 4 min 20 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

...sometimes I actually don't use the word.

Adverbs of frequency

I don't use the word racism because it's so often misunderstood.

Gerund

But you kind of got used to the fact that in any kind of public arena

Well he ain't a proper blackie then, is he?

Haven't heard that terminology for a long time, blackie.

I mean the ones I'm talking about, they're your proper blacks,

the ones that was born in a jungle, your natives.

half of them are still eating each other.

About three years ago, I was walking through White Hart Lane station,

I heard someone shout very loudly the N-word.

I thought at first it was someone listening to an Eminem song

or something, and they were thinking they were Jay-Z.

So I just kept walking. The word was shouted again and,

"Who do you think you are?" Well, I know who I am.

So I looked round to see what was going on, in case it wasn't directed

towards me, I didn't think instinctively that it was.

And it was directed towards me, there was a woman in a flat,

looking out of the flat and she was screaming and yelling at me,

I said, "Why are you shouting at me and why are you shouting the N-word?"

"Because that's what you people call yourself."

And has never seen me before, and yet she felt empowered -

And that's to show you that those overt forms of racism still exist.

I work with a lot of white, middle class people

who like to feel that they're not racist, sexist, homophobic

and all these other things, but they are.

They are - but they are instinctively and they do it

when I'm there, they self-censor themselves

or issues that they feel that I would be sensitive about.

I means at least that they're thinking about them in a certain

kind of way, because I'm in their social space.

perhaps they wouldn't be thinking about it.

Yet even in human interactions, one is second guessing oneself as to,

I like to go to the cinema and watch films.

I don't think while I'm enjoying that film, all those millions of people

I have privilege. I have the privilege of sight.

That privilege of sight means that I don't think about those people

I think in a way it does, it makes me prejudiced against those that cannot

see, but it's a kind of privilege and prejudice that seems natural to me

because the world is effectively made for those that can see.

I think the only way you eradicate racism is by changing

And the only way you get to do that is through education

punish people for their ideas or their beliefs,

but you might not change their views and ideas.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Why are people racist? | BBC Ideas

privilege

proper

exist

casual