It's easy to be racist

The news in London has been dominated of late with stories of racism. One of those stories has come from Australia, with the rather surprising decision of the producers of Hey Hey it's Saturday to have performers on its Red Faces segment "black up". The other story has involved a reference by a Strictly Dancing contestant to a newly spray-tanned dancer looking like a "Paki". Both incidents have been defended (with varying degrees of success) as simply harmless jokes, with no racism intended.

Both incidents were, in my opinion, a result of some serious lapses in judgment. I do like an excuse to be judgmental and feel morally superior. Therefore, I tend to tut and shake my head with glee when I hear of the lapses of judgment of others. However, unfortunately, I have had to avoid the moral opprobrium I would typically display on reading these recent stories of racism. This is because I too have been guilty in the past of being a racist.

The first arguably racist display of mine was in 2004. G and I had bought our first home, a flat in the newly redeveloped East Perth. That part of East Perth used to be an inner-city semi-industrial area. The only people who lived there then made their beds in the doorways of the warehouses or, depending on how much they had drunk that night, on the floor. All that changed when the developers' bulldozers moved in, and turned the warehouses into smart apartments and manicured parks.

Being successful young lawyers (or rather, having just finished law degrees and so being rather too confident in our own abilities), G and I decided to execute the property purchase ourselves, and so duly found ourselves at the Land Titles Registry Office. I had six months more experience in law than G and so, quite naturally, took the lead in this whole process. I therefore dealt with the friendly Land Titles man behind the counter.

"Hmm, East Perth" he said, looking at my Title Deed. "That area's pretty smart now. But it used to be full of Coons. They did a good job getting rid of all those Coons. You don't see any of them there now."

This was, I confess, the first time I heard the term "coons". I therefore immediately assumed the man to be referring to a small (and possibly dangerous) marsupial. Accordingly I nodded approvingly and, not wanting to admit I had no idea what he was talking about, agreed it was good the Coons had gone. It was only when I walked out of the office that I noticed G standing, agog, next to me. G then kindly explained that by "coons" the man had been referring to Aboriginals.

The second incident of my racism was this year on a bus. G and I were travelling to London from Oxford. I heard the noise of a group of men in front of me, breaking the cardinal rule of English public transport and having a very loud conversation across the bus isle. I couldn't see these men but I could hear their conversation, punctuated by numerous "oohs" and "uhs". I turned to G and said (rather too loudly) that the men sounded like a group of monkeys. Again I saw G's agog expression, as G explained that (unknown to me) the men were of apparently Indian descent and that (also unknown to me) to call them monkeys was extremely racist.

I am not the only person to have been caught out being inadvertently racist. When I relayed the above story to my work colleagues the following day (no doubt in breach of our anti-racism work policy), I discovered that everyone had their own story of accidental racism. Perhaps the best was the story of a work supervisor who, being a bit of a fashionista, regularly used the expression "it's the new black!" when referring to anything about which she was fond. When trying to praise a new trainee, she told a group of people that "she's the new black!". As it happened, the trainee was, in fact, black. Someone in the group took offence to this description and the supervisor was promptly sent off on a equality training course.

Real racism is never funny. But knowing that I too have been guilty of it, despite having good intentions, I am going to withhold my judgment on the latest incidents.