I grew up in an Eastern European country where I never met a black person. I’d only ever seen a black person in passing as my parents took me on holiday abroad. And didn’t interact with a black person until university.

In many ways my experience was similar to many other people. And when you didn’t see racism as you were growing up it is hard to believe its existence.

You can’t learn regular expressions from only positive examples

Now, I would like to mention that I went to a very good university and I did internships at some big well renowned companies. That greatly limited the black people I interacted with, I would like to refer to them as positive examples, because these people were not only fortunate but in good positions to get to where the were.

Coming from a family of teachers in a former communist country, I didn’t always live in the most comfortable of surroundings, and I could see that my parents worked three times as hard just to make sure I go to a good university and have a good life.

A lot of the people I interacted with came from good well off families, from primarily western countries. To me that meant it was a lot easier for them to get where they were. The ultimate proof being that some could afford to do what my parents would call a “show” degree, one that does not guarantee you a high paying job. That to me was privilege. And as their numbers were bigger than other eastern europeans at my university, then surely they are in a more privileged situation. And if I don’t feel discriminated against for my nationality, why should they feel discriminated against for being black.

It’s only a level of either self-centredness or just plain lack of education that could lead to such small mindedness. Took me too long to realise that the positive examples meant nothing when you didn’t compare them to the world percentages, suddenly they were a lot smaller than they should be. All the people I interacted with were people who were “the fortunate ones”. Another thing was that if anything was in any way hard for me, but was easier for them, then there was no way something else was hard for them… especially when I never imagined its existence.

There’s no way I’m racist

Growing up the only black people I really saw were people in movies and on TV. People that were good looking. This has lead to me building an image of black people as beautiful. I do think the most beautiful women in my office are all black women. Yet when I went on Tinder a few years ago during one of my internships, I didn’t swipe right to many black people, if any. Why? I don’t know… I wasn’t using Tinder to hook up with anyone, but to find friends in a completely new city. For some reason I thought I would be less likely to hit it off with them or something… but that is racist… (Note: the algorithm also showed me a lot less black people… but that is no excuse)

The lie of the social economic imbalance

There’s something that sounds very logical, black people come from less economically advanced areas, from many “developing” countries. As a result they will not have the necessary economy for focusing on education, and as a result it would be normal to have fewer black people in universities. So it’s not racist for universities to admit fewer black people. It’s something that’s often used to rationalise the imbalance, and in and of itself it makes sense.

What I didn’t see there is what about the people who are native to the population of the country. I didn’t realise the percentages didn’t match. As an immigrant myself, now I realise that things don’t necessarily add up. There’s so many stories about the immigrant family coming to America, or the UK, or generally a highly developed country. The first generation of immigrants struggles, they work hard and achieve citizenship, and then their kids have a better life, and their kids an even better one.

Why am I saying as an immigrant? Because with the lack of racism and white supremacy that’s what they could be seen as, if life was fair. But why doesn’t this apply to black people? And now I realise because the institutionalised racism that ensures the economic imbalance remains…

What I learnt

I am a person who until recently didn’t really realise about the importance or need of feminism as my parents protected me from the sexism, as I was growing up. As I experienced sexism myself it made it easier to understand racism, as I could draw parallels to my own experiences. But why is it so hard to emphasise with people if we ourselves haven’t dealt with hardship? Is it actually impossible? Is that why the Dalai Lama is widely considered the most caring and empathetic person, because he also dealt with an insane amount of hardship?

I hope that we begin to genuinely listen to people’s hardships, and believe them. I hope the increase of media showing stories that display the realities that people face, will make it easier for us to get an inkling of what is going on. But I know I needed the kick in the butt of being discriminated against to begin to open my mind to the realities of the world.