Originally written for Oriel College Equalities Week
THOU SHALT BE AWARE OF YOUR BIASES AND PREJUDICES. Let me just say it: most of us carry racial and ethnic preconceptions which we are not even aware of. Our ancestors evolved in tightly-knit tribes, and most of us grow up in monocultures; it’s no wonder, then, that ethnocultural empathy (that’s a thing) doesn’t come naturally to most of us. So observe thy instincts - Do you instinctively turn away from a person of colour in social settings? Do you tend to ignore people of a different background in a group? Active discrimination is racism at its vulgar worst, but selective omission in informal, casual settings is much more widespread, rampant, and unspoken for. Be Empathetic and Considerate: A well intentioned act as simple and innocent as saving seats at the dinner table for your maties, manifest as mechanisms of segregation and exclusion to minorities.
THOU SHALT MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO MAKE PEOPLE FEEL INCLUDED. “But what can I do? All the Arabs or Mexicans or Zulus I know prefer to hang out among their own kind, in their own cliques!” No, you big dafty. It doesn’t work this way. Everyone wants to integrate and connect. Cliques only form reactively: when someone isn’t made to feel welcome by others, they prefer to connect with those who do make them feel at home. So what can you do? If you notice someone being left out of a conversation at the dinner table or a social outing (because of language or cultural barriers), reach out to them. Notice if someone is being left out. If language is the barrier, help break it. If someone is struggling with English, be patient, and help them find the right words. Know that being adept at the language and mannerisms of the majority doesn’t make you in any sense ‘better’. If you think otherwise, know that you’d get your ass kicked if others were to reciprocate that attitude when you are in an alien land. Thou shalt promote attitudes which prevent thine asses from getting kicked!
THOU SHALT PREFER TO SPEAK IN A COMMON LANGUAGE …in the same spirit of inclusiveness as above. Ok, we know, sometimes it’s just easier and more convenient to speak in your native language (be it German or Swedish or Hindi or Hopi or whatever) with your chuddy buddies, but if you’re excluding someone by constantly blabbering in an alien tongue, it just doesn’t look good. If it can’t be helped - translate things for the other person, make them feel a part of the group. Again, a little vicarious trip - imagining yourself to be in their shoes - would help here.
THOU SHALT MAKE A GENUINE EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND ACCENTS Having difficulties with someone’s accent? Request them to repeat. Or paraphrase. Or spell. (‘Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa’, not ‘Leviosaaaa’). Instead of nodding like an idiot and faking comprehension. Requesting someone to repeat what they’ve said is not rude. On the other hand, if someone asks you to repeat, do not get annoyed.
THOU SHALT CULTIVATE A TASTEFUL SENSE OF HUMOUR. Understand that the nature of a joke depends on who is saying it. Self deprecatory jokes are charming because they are self - deprecatory, not because they are deprecatory. If dark humoured sarcasm is your thing, follow the joke by an acknowledgement of its political incorrectness. Intentions, context and body language are as important as the content of your remarks. Having said that, err on the side of humour. Do not refrain from jokes for fear of offence. Jokes are important: they help break the ice and promote bonding and fellowship.
THOU SHALT NOT JUDGE SOMEONE ELSE’S WAY OF LIFE. If you find someone’s etiquettes, dressing sense or eating habits inappropriate, ask thyself - is there reason to your reproach? Investigate instead of recoiling - you might just learn something new. If there is good reason, thou shalt indulge in constructive communication. If someone’s dinner jacket is going revoltingly haywire, or they’ve sinned by wearing unmatched socks-and-shoes at a black-tie, or (quelle horreur!) a hat at a formal occasion, appreciate the effort they are making to assimilate, instead of giving in to feelings of sartorial superiority and disapproval. You’d admire the value in this if, god forbid, you find yourself having to don a Mon-tsuki for a Japanese ceremony or drape a Saree for an Indian wedding.
THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT LOGICAL FALLACIES. If you toss a coin 10 times, and 9 of them turn up heads, it doesn’t make it any more or less likely that the 11th one will be a head. In the same vein, the bad experience you had with that person from Tuvalu you used to know says nothing - zero, zilch, nada - about the next person from Tuvalu you come across. Each individual is different, respect that. (On the other hand, if you had a good time with the Tuvaluan, allow that to carry forward! If you are going to commit fallacies, commit them to good effect. Put another way - channel thy irrational energies into positive causes)
THOU SHALT NOT BE IGNORANT. Know that the world is much bigger than your bubble. In terms of sheer stupidity, a deep-seated assumption that the west = the world is at par with believing that the sun revolves around the earth. The geographical, linguistic, or even cultural distance between Kerala and Kashmir is bigger than, say, between Norway and France. Seek to enrich thyself by expanding thine horizons.
THOU SHALT BE AWARE THAT MINORITIES FACE QUALITATIVELY DIFFERENT ISSUES THAN THE MAJORITY. So you catch a black person making an assumption about you based on your skin colour. Or you meet a desi who’s as clueless about the differences between Norway and France as you are about Kerala and Kashmir. You go “Ahaa! Gottcha!”. DON’T DO THAT. Instead, indulge in polite, informative and constructive communication. Keep in mind that unlike for you (where the case is one-off), the issue for them is that most people around them carry assumptions about them, or that most around them carry a euro-centric worldview.
THOU SHALT NOT BE A HYPOCRITE. If you claim to love Humanity, begin with thy neighbour.
Thou shalt follow these commandments not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because not doing so casts you in a poor light. Certainly, there is moral virtue in here. But there’s also a hip factor, a cosmopolitan coolness that comes with ethnocultural empathy. Embrace it.
22 February 2016