Dear Ms Understanding,
I’m Asian and my partner is white. We have a 13-month-old together and sometimes at the park I get asked by white mothers, ‘whose child am I looking after?’. It doesn’t happen every week but enough that I’ve been upset by it and would like to know how to respond. These are women I will probably see regularly and I don’t want to get into a situation where they get defensive or, worse, make a big deal out of apologising. Both of those reactions I find exhausting. But I do want them to know how inappropriate it is to assume I’m a nanny to my own child and ensure they don’t do it to someone else! What can I say?
Firstly, I’m sorry. It sucks to be confronted with racism while you’re at the park, trying to function like a normal human being even as you struggle through sleep deprivation and tend to a small child.
Before I address your question directly, let’s accept that for many reasons, some white people struggle to integrate feedback about racism from people of colour, especially when that feedback pertains to something they personally have said or done. So, you may have to deal with defensiveness and denial no matter how gentle you are in how you handle these matters.
At the same time there are plenty of fair-minded, reasonable people who can look at situation, recognise they are wrong, and take responsibility like mature adults.
You could certainly keep your mouth shut and ignore these comments each time they happen. Sometimes silence is a legitimate and healthy response to racist foolishness. However, bottling up anger or irritation can diminish your self-esteem and chip away at your self-respect.
There is one school of thought that says focus only on what has been said, and not on whether you think the person is a racist. This is fine, except that in the real world, racism often lives in what is unsaid or what is inferred or implied.
What works for me is to start by identify for myself why something feels racist. I ask myself, “what are the unspoken racial assumptions that are driving this person’s words or actions?” Often, I will question whether the same tone or language would be used if I were white, or if I were a man. Clearly, in this situation it’s a no-brainer: if you were white, the question would simply not arise.
Once I’ve done this quick gut check and I am certain I’m dealing with racism, I consider how best to respond. Every case differs, but in social situations where you have some level of interpersonal power, you want to be honest, succinct and curious. You could say something like, “You’re the third person to ask me that. Are you asking because I’m Asian?”
Leaving the question open is helpful in case they aren’t being racist. They could very well say something like, “No, I was asking because you’re so young,” in which case you can make a self-deprecating remark about how wonderful it is to have ageless Asian skin, move on. You haven’t accused them of anything and there may be some slight awkwardness, but it’s no big deal.
However, if your hunch is right, the person may well apologise. You can graciously accept their sorry and move on. After all, this is the real world, not Twitter, and the objective here is to make the behaviour stop so everyone can get back to their snacks.
If the person starts crying or is overly apologetic, it’s natural to want to sympathise with them, but it can be exhausting to console a person who has just racially profiled you. One way to be kind but firm is to accept the apology if you are so inclined, and then subtly break up the interaction by leaving them to their feelings. If you need to take time out, get up and take a deep breath.
When you come back, sit next to someone else. If you want to (but only if you want to, and if you don’t want to, it’s perfectly understandable), you can make eye contact with the offending person and smile in their direction to indicate there are no hard feelings. In this way, you can acknowledge their feelings while also setting a boundary for yourself. If you are annoyed, then by all means indicate your discomfort and unhappiness either verbally or non-verbally.
If the person opts for the other end of the spectrum and is angry and aggressive, you have two options. One is to immediately end the conversation and refuse to engage them. This isn’t always easy but have a reliable phrase ready like, “Your tone and comments have crossed the line. This conversation is over.”
The second is to respond with fury and to give it back to them as good as they gave it to you. Only pursue this option if you are ready for the consequences – which may be more negative for you than for the other party. You don’t want to find yourself in an unsafe situation.
Ultimately you can only act in accordance with what feels right. My objective as a Black person is to walk away from these scenarios with my self-respect intact. Figuring out whether I will be able to live with myself and according to my values – in a society that often does not respect me – is never easy, but it is important to have an internal compass. Self-respect can look like anger, righteousness or grace, depending on the scenario.
In the end however, self-respect always looks like accepting that you can’t control how others behave, but you can figure out what your line is, and do your best to hold it.
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Sisonke Msimang is a Guardian Australia columnist. She is the author of Always Another Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home (2017) and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela (2018)
